LOSING GROUND

It has often been stated that the United States is the world’s one indispensable nation. While this statement can have a plethora of meanings, it usually refers to the concept of the U.S., in conjunction with its western allies, being willing to challenge tyrannies and dictatorships across the globe, whenever these evil-doers seek to destroy western values of freedom and liberty. And so it was throughout the 20th century. When U.S. allies Briton and France were mired in stalemated trench warfare against Germany during WWI, it was the U.S. that sent its troops abroad to break the stalemate and win the war for western values. When Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, who were the embodiment of the purest evil this planet had ever witnessed, launched a second world war, once again it was the U.S. that came to the rescue of its European allies. Of course, when the U.S. finally did enter WWII (after the bombing of Pearl Harbor), it was almost too late. Hitler had overrun virtually all of Europe, and Imperial Japan had gobbled up most of the Pacific. If Japan had followed up the Pearl Harbor assault with an invasion of our west coast, it likely would have been all over for the good guys.

But U.S. do-goodism didn’t end with defeating the axis powers of WWII. When Communists in the Korean peninsula sought to overrun Korea with the support of Mao Zedong’s Communist China in 1950, the U.S. once again militarily intervened. That was an instance where the U.S. could only fight to a draw, however. The northern half of the Korean peninsula fell under China’s dictatorship, while the southern half remained free and allied to the U.S. Next came the the U.S. mis-adventure of becoming involved in jungle warfare in Viet-Nam. France had initially, in the 1950s, tried to save South-Viet-Nam from North -Vietnam’s communist dictatorship, but had failed. Not paying attention to the obvious, we then took over from France with the zeal of a mis-guided do-gooder, only to also fail as all Viet-Nam fell under Communist control. Along the way almost 60 thousand U.S. lives were lost, along with hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese that were also killed.

We followed up the Viet-Nam fiasco by liberating Kuwait from the evil of Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq, to close out the 20th century. But a new evil menace virtually opened up the 21st century, namely Islamic Jihadist terrorism and the horrors of 9/11. Thus, the U.S. once again became militarily involved in trying to keep the West safe for democracy. We invaded Afghanistan in retaliation for Al Qaida’s attack on the World Trade Center in New York, but are still bogged down there 16 years later, in a seemingly endless and futile operation against Taliban Islamic fanatics thriving in that country. We followed that up by invading Iraq, and yes, we did remove the tyranny of Saddam Hussein from the world stage. But in his place, the even more evil Islamic jihadist organization known as ISIS has filled the void. The one overriding mission of all the Islamic jihadist organizations is to destroy Israel, Western Europe, and, of course, the U.S. Anywhere that democracy seems to be firmly entrenched.

As the Islamic terror entities continue to thrive, so does their primary sponsor, the country of Iran, which is one of the bitterest enemies of the U.S. Iran’s military power and influence continues to expand around the globe. They are first down on the one yard line with goal to go, as far as acquiring nuclear weapons. The overriding goal of the Ayatollahs that run that country is to wipe Israel off the map on their way to destroying western civilization and democracy. On the other side of the planet, our failure to liberate the northern half of the Korean peninsula in the 1950s has come back to bite us in the you know what. Under the insane dictatorship Kim Jong Un and his predecessors, North Korea has become a giant concentration camp, but one with nuclear weapons and missiles that will soon be able to reach the continental U.S. As N.Korea’s nuclear arsenal grows each year, the U.S. has run out of options for containment. The current administration has pleaded with China to rein in N.Korea’s nuclear ambitions, but with virtually no success. After all, China and N.Korea are communist pals, and good buddies don’t turn on each other. The only other option appears to be military action which is really unthinkable at this point in time.

The enemies list of western civilization doesn’t stop with the gaggle of Islamic Jihadists, Iran and N.Korea. Despite assurances from the current U.S. administration, Russia’s tyrannical despot, Vladimir Putin, has nothing but contempt an ill-will toward the U.S. and its allies. Putin, who simply murders political opponents Mafia-style, interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to assure that Hillary Clinton would not become president. Her opponent, he figured, would be a softer touch in opposing his goals of Russian expansion throughout Eastern Europe, as well as the Mid-East where he continues to support Syria’s blood-soaked dictator Bashar al-Assad who has slaughtered his countrymen by the hundreds of thousands.

So there you have it. The enemies of the U.S. and western democracy grow stronger by the day, while we standby, virtually impotent to counter their advancements. War would be unthinkable. First of all we couldn’t monetarily fund it. The U.S. budget deficit is 20 trillion dollars in the hole and growing rapidly. Any significant military action would cost an additional hundreds of billions of dollars that we can no longer afford. The armed forces of our European allies are uniformly weak and under-funded. Even as our enemies on this planet continue to grow stronger and more powerful.

Maybe the moral of this story is that the good guys don’t always win. Sometimes evil does triumph. Western democracy won decisively in WWII, but it’s been pretty much of a downhill slide in the ensuing decades since then.